The Checkup

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Summer is supposed to be a happy time, right? But for many, it’s a very anxious time — particularly if you suffer from fear of flying and a long-distance vacation looms, or from intense parental anxiety as your children range farther off than usual.

So, for your summer listening pleasure, we offer you this favorite episode from among the best of The Checkup, the WBUR/Slate podcast: It explores three different aspects of that incredibly common (especially among CommonHealth co-hosts) psychiatric disorder: anxiety.

First, we get into Rachel’s fear of flying and how she (sort of) overcame it. For a fuller story, she wrote about it here, but the saga continues.

Then, we speak with Harvard Medical School’s Mohammed Milad about his research on an intriguing hormone-based hypothesis that might help explain why so many more women suffer from fear and anxiety disorders than men. For more, see Rachel’s full interview with him: “Why Do So Many Women Have Anxiety Disorders? A Hormone Hypothesis“.

And finally, we talk about parental anxiety and how we can try to manage it better through mindfulness techniques, featuring a recent book on the topic — “The Mindful Way Through Anxiety” — by Suffolk University professor Sue Orsillo. For more, the book’s website is here, and a sample chapter is here.

We can’t be reminded too often that the fantasies portrayed in bodice-buster novels and porn flicks bear only a vague resemblance to what happens (and how we look) in real life.

So here, as part of our summer-listening revival of the best of our WBUR/Slate podcast, The Checkup, is a favorite, particularly juicy episode, titled “Sexual Reality Check.” It includes surprises about penis size, stories of great sex over 70 and new insights on how both men and women are lied to about their sexuality.

In case you missed other recent episodes: “Teenage Zombies” explored the curious minds of adolescents, with segments on sleep, porn and impulsive choices; “Power to the Patient” looked at ways we can all feel in more control of our health care; and “High Anxiety” included reports on hormones, parenting and fear of flying.

As summer enters its dog days, you can feel the great gears of the news machine slowing, slowing, slowing, like a locomotive as it pulls into a station. So now seems like a good moment to re-offer you some of the best of our WBUR/Slate podcast, The Checkup, for your listening pleasure on those long car trips and plane rides to vacationland.

In particular, in case you missed this delectable morsel, may we recommend our episode titled “Scary Food Stories”? It features three particular cautionary tales: on kale, chia seeds and sugar. Download it here before your next meal. Or if you don’t, don’t say we didn’t warn you…

In case you missed other recent episodes: “Teenage Zombies,” explored the curious minds of adolescents, with segments on sleep, porn and impulsive choices; “Power to the Patient” looked at ways we can all feel in more control of our health care; “High Anxiety” included reports on hormones, parenting and fear of flying; and “Sexual Reality Checks” examined penis size, female desire and aging.

If you’ve ever hated your weight or wished to trade in a specific body part, or yearned to step off the debilitating dieting roller-coaster, you are so not alone. Indeed, you are us.

So here, we vent about our personal challenges — how to finally lose that last 10 pounds, escaping from our self-imposed food prisons — and explore some new strategies for relief. It’s all in the latest installment of our podcast, The Checkup, a joint venture between WBUR and Slate. We call this episode “Muffin Top,” Download it here before your next meal.

•First, we explore Motivational Interviewing, an increasingly popular technique that can spur you toward making changes in your eating and other behaviors. Included: A new book with the subtitle: “How the Power of Motivational Interviewing Can Reveal What You Want and Help You Get There.”

•And we also also get intimate about the psychic costs of actually achieving your goal weight and trying, desperately, to maintain it.

In case you missed other recent episodes: “Teenage Zombies,” explored the curious minds of adolescents, with segments on sleep, porn and impulsive choices; “Power to the Patient” looked at ways we can all feel in more control of our health care; “High Anxiety” included reports on hormones, parenting and fear of flying; and “Sexual Reality Checks” examined penis size, female desire and aging.

• Do you beg your teenager to go to sleep earlier so he or she can function? Well, it turns out they physically can’t do that, explains Dr. Marvin Wang, a pediatrician at Massachusetts General Hospital on a mission to make school start times later.

It doesn’t help, of course, to be half-naked or in a bottom-baring johnny. But even when fully clothed, we patients — and we’re pretty much all patients at some point — often feel powerless or uncharacteristically passive in our encounters with the health care system.

In case you missed other recent episodes: “High Anxiety” looked at hormones, parenting and fear of flying; “Sexual Reality Checks” examined penis size, female desire and aging; and “Grossology” included a look at the first stool bank in the nation and research on the benefits of “bacterial schmears” from a mother’s birth canal. )

Extra, extra, get your hot-off-the-presses new episode of The Checkup, the health podcast that WBUR produces in partnership with Slate, here! It explores three different aspects of that incredibly common (especially among CommonHealth co-hosts) psychiatric disorder: anxiety.

First, we get into Rachel’s fear of flying and how she (sort of) overcame it. For a fuller story, she wrote about it here, but the saga continues.

Then, we speak with Harvard Medical School’s Mohammed Milad about his research on an intriguing hormone-based hypothesis that might help explain why so many more women suffer from fear and anxiety disorders than men. For more, see Rachel’s full interview with him: “Why Do So Many Women Have Anxiety Disorders? A Hormone Hypothesis“.

And finally, we talk about parental anxiety and how we can try to manage it better through mindfulness techniques, featuring a recent book on the topic — “The Mindful Way Through Anxiety” — by Suffolk University professor Sue Orsillo. For more, the book’s website is here, a sample chapter is here, and please stay tuned for a post with the full interview.

And in case you missed our most recent episodes: “Grossology” included a look at the first stool bank in the nation and research on the benefits of “bacterial schmears” from a mother’s birth canal — you can listen here. And “Sexual Reality Checks” busted myths about penis size, aging and female sexuality — it’s here.

If you listen and like it, won’t you please let our podcasting partner, Slate, know? You can email them at podcasts@slate.com.

Possibly our juiciest segment yet, the latest installment of The Checkup podcast, our joint venture with Slate, takes on some sexual myths and offers a bit of reality.

We bring you surprises about penis size, stories of great sex over 70 and new insights on how both men and women are lied to about their sexuality. As we have in past segments, Carey and I offer our fresh take on research-based news that could brighten up your life below the waist. Check it out here:

And in case you missed our last episode, “Grossology” (including a look at the first stool bank in the nation and research on the benefits of “bacterial schmears” from a mother’s birth canal) — you can listen now.

And if you want to hear earlier episodes: “Scary Food Stories” includes the tale of a recovering sugar addict and offers sobering news to kale devotees. And “On The Brain” includes fascinating research on dyslexia, depression and how playing music may affect our minds.

Make sure to tune in next time, when we present: “High Anxiety,” an episode on the (arguably) most prevalent of mental health disorders.

Warning: Things get a little messy — well, maybe even slightly disgusting — in the latest episode of our CommonHealth podcast, The Checkup.

We call this episode “Grossology,™” and it’s rife with bacteria and dirt and even, to convey the smelly reality in elegant French, merde.

But it’s actually quite a heartening look at how yuck-factor stuff may be good for you, whether you’re a baby or a patient with a resistant infection. Or at least, not as bad as you might think.

“Grossology” begins with Rachel’s look at the first stool bank in the nation, launched by an MIT microbiologist. (Did you know that the great bacterial world inside your body is kind of like a rainforest?)

It also describes research into what we call the “bacterial schmear” — whether babies born by Cesarean sections might benefit from being wiped with some of the bacteria they would have picked up in their mothers’ birth canals. And it will offer some solace to parents who feel guilty about “cleaning” their babies’ pacifiers by popping the binkies into their own mouths. You know who you are.

And in case you missed our recent episodes: “Scary Food Stories” includes the tale of a recovering sugar addict and offers sobering news to kale devotees. And “On The Brain” includes fascinating research on dyslexia, depression and how playing music may affect our minds.

Make sure to tune in next time, when we present: “High Anxiety,” an episode on the (arguably) most prevalent of mental health disorders.

About CommonHealth

Massachusetts is the leading laboratory for health care reform in the nation, and a hub of medical innovation. From the lab to your doctor’s office, from the broad political stage to the numbers on your scale, we’d like CommonHealth to be your go-to source for news, conversation and smart analysis. Your hosts are Carey Goldberg, former Boston bureau chief of The New York Times, and Rachel Zimmerman, former health and medicine reporter for The Wall Street Journal.GET IN TOUCH

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Massachusetts is the leading laboratory for health care reform in the nation, and a hub of medical innovation. From the lab to your doctor’s office, from the broad political stage to the numbers on your scale, we’d like CommonHealth to be your go-to source for news, conversation and smart analysis. Your hosts are Carey Goldberg, former Boston bureau chief of The New York Times, and Rachel Zimmerman, former health and medicine reporter for The Wall Street Journal.

If they’re so effective, why aren’t more women using IUDs and implants? A health clinic in Worcester is getting help to put better birth control front and center — particularly long-acting birth control, in hopes of cutting the high rate of unintended pregnancy.